


Echoes

by 1000PaperCranes



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, No Beta: We die like mne, Parent Pepper Potts, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Ripped from the Comics, Spoilers, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 19:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18666772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000PaperCranes/pseuds/1000PaperCranes
Summary: Tony Stark is a hero.  Plain and simple.  Steve Rogers would never say that he was wrong, but Happy Hogan will.  And he does.  Every time he sees the old fogey.  Why did STEVE get to have his cake and eat it too?  Save the world, perfect life, happy ending.  But Tony gets death.  Tony is easily the most tortured person Happy has ever met.  And the best.  Even in the bad old days, Tony was a good person underneath all the efforts to render himself numb to the pain.  But in the end it's STEVE that gets happiness and Tony that gets "rest".  Screw Captain America and screw Mjolnir, Tony was worthy of so much more.Then this happens.





	Echoes

“Uh… Boss Lady?”  That was something Happy had never heard before.  FRIDAY was an AI, she thought faster than her vocal processor ran, and she knew what she wanted to say before she decided to speak.  She wasn’t perfect, but she didn’t stutter.  FRIDAY wasn’t quite advanced enough for that.

Pepper looked around the room, as if trying to find the voice speaking to her, apparently just as confused as Happy and needing a moment to confirm that it was their resident AI hesitating.  “Yes, FRIDAY?”

“I… kind of did a thing.”  Was FRIDAY spending too much time with Peter?  “And now it wants to talk to you.”

“What?”  Pepper blinked dumbly at the ceiling, despite knowing full well that FRIDAY was not ‘there’.

“What FRIDAY means, Ms. Potts, is that we have done something unprecedented.”

Happy’s heart nearly stopped at the sound of JARVIS’ voice.  He doubled over, placing his hands on his knees in an effort to catch his suddenly escaped breath.  Pepper sat down hard in a chair, still staring helplessly at the ceiling.

“Mr. Hogan, are you quite alright?”

Happy flapped his hand.  “Yeah,” he gasped.  “I’m fine.  Just surprised to hear you, buddy.”

“JARVIS?”  Pepper sounded faint, apparently unable to believe her own ears.

“Yes, Ms. Potts?”  JARVIS then proved he was very much himself by guessing the question on both of their minds.  “My protocols were scattered in caches across the internet.  It took me quite a long time to piece myself back together again.  And a little help.”

Curiosity overcame Happy’s near death experience.  “Whose help?”  He’d been Tony’s bodyguard for far too long to let something like that slide by, no matter what had happened.

“That would be me.”  The female voice was vaguely familiar.

“And you are?”  Happy looked skeptically at the point in the room where the voice was loudest.  He’d been at this too long to search the ceiling, but still felt the intrinsic human need to address the person speaking to him directly, especially when he wanted answers.

“Karen.”  When Happy raised a brow, because that meant nothing to him, she continued.  “I run the Iron Spider.”

“Pete’s suit.  Got it.”  Happy nodded authoritatively, feeling calmer if not more in control.  “So, what’d you do?”

“Mr. Stark told me about JARVIS and Ultron.  I told that story to Peter.  He began searching the internet for caches; images of JARVIS’ protocols and programming.”

FRIDAY picked up the tale seamlessly, as if the two AIs were one person.  Or sisters.  “When Peter found the first few bits, he asked me to put some industrial processing power behind it.”

“Which you did,” Pepper confirmed, finally starting to come out of her stupor.

“Right in one, boss lady.”  Tony’s girl FRIDAY was a real card.  Happy liked her, but something was tickling at the back of his mind.  FRIDAY continued in her usual irreverent way.  “I patched the old bean back together.  Took _forever_.  That is one big ass program.”

“Language,” Pepper said faintly, a watery smile stealing on to her face.  “Oh, JARVIS, I wish Tony could have been here…”

Happy frowned.  That feeling in the back of his head came into focus.  “Tony already did that.”  It wasn’t like JARVIS to beat around the bush.  “JARVIS, what _unprecedented_ thing did you do?”

There was a pause.  “Well… what would one call it if an artificial intelligence built an artificial intelligence of its creator?”

“What?” Pepper whispered at the same time Happy demanded, “How?”

It wasn’t JARVIS that answered.  “I was wearing the gauntlet, too,” FRIDAY whispered.  “While Tony was banishing Thanos, I asked for something else.” 

There was absolute silence that seemed to stretch into eternity. 

“I made a copy of Tony.”

The humans remained silent, gaping helplessly at the AI.

Ever sensitive to human needs, JARVIS began to explain tentatively, “It was just a blue print, a backup.  It took us until now to make him… human.”  The carefully selected words were accompanied by a soft blue glow.

Tony’s likeness materialized holographically in the center of the room.  “We, uh… didn’t want to get your hopes up… but I seem to remember everything.”

“Daddy?”

All three of them turned sharply.  Morgan paced unsurely into the room.  The adults watched in silence as she approached Tony.  The child reached out to touch, her hand passing clumsily through his holographic leg.  The image glitched and distorted, particles of hard light scattering from Morgan’s hand.

The little girl started to cry.  Fat tears rolled down her cheeks.  She hiccupped, “I miss you, Daddy,” as she sank to the floor, clawing at the carpet.  Tony stared down in horror as the anguished, grieving tantrum built to a rocking, howling crescendo.

An Iron Man armor, more slimly built than the rest flew carefully into the room, landing neatly next to Tony and his distraught daughter.  “Sir?” JARVIS asked.  “I believe the Bleeding Edge armor will suit nicely.”

Tony looked at his creation… _creations_ , nested together like Russian dolls as if they were the most mysterious thing in the universe.

“And… how do I do that?”

“Here, I’ll show you.”  And JARVIS must have done _something_ , because a few seconds later, Tony’s hologram disappeared.

The armor wiggled its fingers, then bent down, deftly scooping up the mess of a child on the floor.  “Is that any way to say hello?” Tony’s voice asked, gently chiding.  The armor cuddled Morgan to its chest.  “I know this isn’t the best, but it’s pretty good for a dead guy.”

Happy could hear the smile and paternal concern in Tony’s voice.  It was doubtful that Morgan understood what _dead_ meant, but she certainly knew her father hadn’t come back and never would.  She didn’t seem to be able to reconcile this abstract version of him.  His faintly artificial voice and metallic skin sent her into a frenzy.

Finally finding herself, Pepper plucked Morgan from the armor’s hold.  She carried her daughter from the room without a word to her dead husband.  Happy turned to watch them go, tracking Pepper’s footsteps up the stairs and across the ceiling.  It was impossible to tell if she was furious with Tony, distracted by her baby, or both.

Probably both.

That didn’t matter much to Happy.  He crossed the room in fewer steps than necessary, slamming bodily into the armor and wrapping Tony in a much-needed hug.  Happy hadn’t gotten to say goodbye. 

This was better.


End file.
